Q. I am writing a report for a corporate client describing his construction project. When not using the formal name of the project, he insists that I refer to it as “the Project,” where the word “Project” is capitalized. That does not bother me. But when an adjective precedes the word “project,” it strikes me as odd to maintain the capitalization. For example, “this redevelopment Project.” Does Chicago have a recommendation about capitalization in these two instances?
A. Presumably “the Project” has been defined at first use—for example,
The project for redevelopment of the brownfield area at the intersection of Street St. and N. Avenue (“the Project”), which consists of . . .
After that, to refer to the “redevelopment Project” would be redundant. So the best course is simply to replace “this redevelopment Project” with “the Project.” Any additional details can be added after the term (or incorporated into the original definition of the term). (It should perhaps be noted that, outside of certain legal or corporate contexts, Chicago style would normally call for lowercase “project.”)